Matthew Stewart vs. SWAT and the Rise of the Rambo Cop

Many thanks for the link to the article Chris!

via the Wall Street Journal.

On Jan. 4 of last year, a local narcotics strike force conducted a raid on the Ogden, Utah, home of Matthew David Stewart at 8:40 p.m. The 12 officers were acting on a tip from Mr. Stewart's former girlfriend, who said that he was growing marijuana in his basement. Mr. Stewart awoke, naked, to the sound of a battering ram taking down his door. Thinking that he was being invaded by criminals, as he later claimed, he grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta pistol.The police say that they knocked and identified themselves, though Mr. Stewart and his neighbors said they heard no such announcement. Mr. Stewart fired 31 rounds, the police more than 250. Six of the officers were wounded, and Officer Jared Francom was killed. Mr. Stewart himself was shot twice before he was arrested. He was charged with several crimes, including the murder of Officer Francom.
The police found 16 small marijuana plants in Mr. Stewart's basement. There was no evidence that Mr. Stewart, a U.S. military veteran with no prior criminal record, was selling marijuana. Mr. Stewart's father said that his son suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have smoked the marijuana to self-medicate.
Early this year, the Ogden city council heard complaints from dozens of citizens about the way drug warrants are served in the city. As for Mr. Stewart, his trial was scheduled for next April, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. But after losing a hearing last May on the legality of the search warrant, Mr. Stewart hanged himself in his jail cell.

Read the entire article, its a must do!

Side note:  I always said that if a SWAT team ran up against a highly motivated former military guy that they'd be in trouble.  This incident and the Dorn case prove my point.  Matthews shot 31 times and got at least 6 hits, one of them fatal vs. 250 rounds in return fire while he was hit twice.  Don't forget that Matthews was naked, was asleep and might have burned through all his ready ammo.  The cops?  They struck in the middle of the night, wore body armor, had fully automatic weapons, optics and outnumbered him.  The DOJ and Federal Officials have justification to fear Vets (yeah right I'm just being controversial, I don't mean this one bit...but I want to take you to a hypothetical).  If they ever united (even a small group of them) and decided to go on a crime spree it would be lights out.  Imagine 13 Afghanistan vets form a squad to rob banks or drug dealers?  What if they had body armor, combat load outs of ammo and AR-15s/AK-47s???  Say they trained and worked out and practiced tactics for a year before they pulled their first job?  Cops, Banks, and Drug Dealers wouldn't stand a chance.